PARLIAMENT ADJOURNED UNTIL WEDNESDAY [DEVELOPING STORY]

Kathmandu, 9 Jan.: Parliament, on the opening day Sunday, passed a resolution condoling the death of UML lawmaker Dambar Bahadur Khadka in a vehicular accident.
The session was adjourned until Wednesday.
Parliament has two immediate businesses—elect a successor of Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal and endorse an ordinance promulgating the 2010/11 annual budget.
The ordinance has to be endorsed after parliament session begins.
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COLD WAVE CLAIMS FIVE MORE LIVES

Kathmandu, 9 Jan.: A cold wave Sunday claimed five more lives in the terai.
The two week cold spell has now claimed at least 27 lives, according to compiled reports.
Schools were closed in Rautahat Sunday for six days.
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ENERGY MINISTER MAHAT REWARDS LACKEY

Kathmandu, 9 Jan.: Minister for Energy Prakash Sharan Mahat’s move has generated resentment and insecurity among officials at the ministry, The Himalayan Times reports..

Mahat had transferred chief of the Policy and International Coordination Department at Anup Upadhyay to the Water and Energy Commission Secretariat (WECS) a month ago. In Upadhyay’s place, he appointed the juniormost superintendent engineer Moti Bahadur Kunwar.

Kunwar is juniormost among eight superintendent engineers at the Department of Electricity Department (DoED). “Kunwar was transferred from the Ministry of Irrigation six months ago to DoED. He lacks experience to hold such an important post,” said an official preferring anonymity. “As it is, the ministry is running without a secretary, but worse, the appointment of a junior officer in such a position is bound to create more problems in the coming days,” added the source.

Officials at the ministry allege that the minister wanted a ‘Yes-man’ in that post as it is a major position for deciding on policies to be formulated and implemented. Upadhyay had worked closely with Secretary Shanker Prasad Koirala, who was transferred to Nepal Trust office recently.

Mahat had proposed the secretary’s transfer in last week’s cabinet meeting. Differences between Mahat and Koirala had surfaced a couple of months ago when both took each other head on while appointing the chairperson for Upper Tamakoshi Hydropower Limited.

The head of Policy and International Coordination Department is also a member of the Mahat-formed panel to amend the Hydropower License Management Procedure. The committee has the last right to decide on license providing procedures. The CIAA had also sought clarification from Mahat in this regard.
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DONOR PLANS FOR NEPAL
Kathmandu, 9 Jan.: In a bid to accelerate prosperity, the donor community is unveiling a strategy that links up peace with development programmes., Anil Giri reports in The Kathmandu Post.

UNDP, European donor agencies, USAID, JICA, and Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, among others, have prepared the strategy to be unveiled on Jan. 12.

“The strategy will focus on implementing development projects while placing the value of peace at the core,” a senior donor agency official told the Post.

The donor community will take into confidence the leaders of all the major political parties while implementing the strategy. In this respect, UNDP Residential Representative, Robert Piper, on Saturday called on UCPN (Maoist) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal and informed about the strategy. “I went to brief Prachanda on a new peace and development strategy that the UN and all development partners of Nepal including USAID and JAICA are going to unveil next week. We have been working collectively to develop the strategy that explains how development, social inclusion, rule of law and implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) can be addressed. The peace and development strategy would be launched on 12 January and I invited the Maoist chairman to attend the inaugural ceremony,” Piper told the Post after the meeting.

They also discussed about the integration and rehabilitation of 19,000 Maoist combatants. “I recalled what the Under Secretary General B Lynn Pascoe conveyed a few months ago and urged that the parties reach an agreement on the combatants before UNMIN leaves in mid-January. The deal on the future of the combatants would be a better option than other monitoring arrangements,” he said when asked about his discussion with Dahal.

“The major donors, who have a decade-long experience of conducting developmental activities in Nepal, are now linking peace with development as a key strategy for prosperity. So the strategy will tell how to cope with hurdles that the peace and development practices are facing and identify the concentration on these two sectors,” the official said. Human Rights, principle of peace and development strategy and other fundamental concerns of the donor community will be included in the strategy paper.
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